Insurance regulators for the state of Wisconsin have expressed their worry over the impact of a new federal rule, which may make it impossible for some health insurance companies from being capable of providing coverage to individuals who purchase their own health coverage as opposed to receiving it through their employers.
In Wisconsin, the insurance commissioner’s office has made a request to federal officials to gradually ease into their new rule, which would necessitate that health insurance companies spend at least 80 percent of the premiums they collect on actual medical care.
This new regulation applies to all healthcare policies that are sold to small employers and to individuals. Health insurance companies who fail to meet the 80 percent minimum will be required to provide their customers with discounts.
The Wisconsin insurance commissioner, Ted Nickel, has requested that the level be reduced for the year to 71 percent, and then raised gradually in phases so that 2012 would see a 74 percent level and the year after that would be 77 percent until it could finally be increased to the full 80 percent.
This request has been made in the hopes that health insurance companies will be better able to manage the change in regulations if it comes upon them more gradually and less dramatically. The goal is to make certain that more health insurance companies will be better capable of ensuring that individuals will be able to obtain the coverage that they need and at a rate that they will be able to afford.
